I
believe that I should have given them money to live upon and that
I should have consoled myself somehow. At that date I might have
found some young thing, like Maisie Maidan, or the poor girl, and
I might have had some peace. For peace I never had with
Florence, and hardly believe that I cared for her in the way of love
after a year or two of it. She became for me a rare and fragile
object, something burdensome, but very frail. Why it was as if I
had been given a thin-shelled pullet's egg to carry on my palm
from Equatorial Africa to Hoboken. Yes, she became for me, as it
were, the subject of a bet--the trophy of an athlete's achievement,
a parsley crown that is the symbol of his chastity, his soberness,
his abstentions, and of his inflexible will. Of intrinsic value as a
wife, I think she had none at all for me. I fancy I was not even
proud of the way she dressed.
But her passion for Jimmy was not even a passion, and, mad as the
suggestion may appear, she was frightened for her life. Yes, she
was afraid of me. I will tell you how that happened. I had, in the
old days, a darky servant, called Julius, who valeted me, and
waited on me, and loved me, like the crown of his head.
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